Balance, a Christmas gift.

I have always believed that balance is something we should also strive to achieve, now this could be because I am a Libra, the star sign represented by the weighing scales, but I am a non-believer in astrology. I personally don’t think that the position of the stars in the sky have a direct correlation to what happens in my day to day life. No, I think my interest in balance has developed over my career, in particular in the form of work-life balance, because I feel that what you do outside of work has a massive impact on what you can deliver in the office.

I think balance is particularly important at this time of year as we all have a tendency to overdo things and put ourselves at risk of burning out. Take this week as an example, I have a busy week at work with plenty on my to-do list, this is added to by a day in London on Thursday with a full on schedule of meetings followed by an awards dinner with some of the other members of the Maximise IT team. As you may have read, we had some fantastic awards success a few weeks ago at the UK IT Industry Awards. This time around, it’s the Financial Innovation Awards and we are really hoping to repeat the success of the win we achieved in 2014 at these particular Awards.

Hopefully I won’t celebrate too hard because on Friday night it’s the company Christmas party, another great opportunity to have some fun with work colleagues and celebrate the fantastic year we’ve had in 2017. It’s really challenging with these work social occasions to get the balance right, not eating too much rubbish, either on the evening itself or due to the hangover the following day. Which obviously means trying to achieve some balance on the amount of alcohol to drink too, I don’t want to be a party pooper but I also find it hard to cope with a three-day hangover that seem to be the norm (must be my age!).

During this time of potential excess, when life seems extra busy, I try hard to remember others, who may not have this first world problem of trying not to eat/drink too much. Another form of balance. I was reminded of this when shopping at my local supermarket last weekend. Some lovely people were there doing a Christmas specific food bank collection, asking the shoppers to pick an extra Christmas item such as mince pies to ensure local people could actually have a traditional Christmas dinner. I was happy to oblige but thinking about it later I wish I had done more. So I will find a way to do so before Christmas.

At this time of year, as part of my balance objective, I take a few hours out just for me, I make a point of watching ‘Scrooged’ one of my all-time favourite Christmas films, due in a large part to my love and appreciation of Mr Bill Murray. It’s a more modern take on Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’, the Scrooge story, the ultimate reminder of why we need balance in our lives. If you’ve never seen it I include a link below to the Christmas miracle speech at the end of the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eObVoC0dOp0

Happy Christmas

Lynsey